An evaluation of the transferability of the interpretive approach to teachers’ continuing professional development

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An evaluation of the transferability of the

interpretive approach to teachers’ continuing

professional development.

Joyce Miller

This thesis forms part of the submission for the degree of

Doctor of Education (Ed D)

University of Warwick, Institute of Education

Table of Contents

Ch.1

Introduction

1

Ch.2

Methodology 29

Ch.3

The teachers’ experiences of and responses

to the CPD programme (part 1)

56

Ch.4

The teachers’ experiences of and responses

to the CPD programme (part 2)

83

Ch.5

The teachers’ understanding of their religious

and

cultural

communities

109

Ch.6

The impact of the CPD programme on the

teachers’

personal

edification and professional

practice.

134

Ch.7

Transferability and impact: conclusions

164

References

184

Glossary

197

List of illustrations

Fig. 1:

The school in relation to pupils’ addresses by

ethnicity

16

Fig. 2:

Pupil addresses in relation to areas of multiple

deprivation,

by

ethnicity 21

Acknowledgements

With my grateful thanks to my supervisor, Professor Robert

Jackson, for his unfailing support, guidance and friendship over

many years.

I am also grateful to the members of the Warwick Community of

Practice for their questions, insights and challenges, and for the

fun we had. Among them, it is appropriate to single out Dr Kevin

O’Grady for his guidance on methodology.

Abstract:

This is a practitioner research project set in the humanities faculty

of a school in a northern town where riots took place in 2001. The

aim was to evaluate the transferability of the interpretive approach

to teachers’ continuing professional development and to see how

far it increased their understanding of and relationship with their

local communities.

Qualitative data were gathered using a range of methods including

participant observation, semi-structured interviews and

questionnaires. The teachers engaged in ethnographic-type

activities in their participant observation of groups and interviews

with representatives and their students. The principles of the

interpretive approach – representation, interpretation and

reflexivity – underpinned the

design of the

programme and the data

analysis.

The research found that teachers’ understanding of the diversity of

communities

was increased. There was little evidence of increased

understanding of ‘the group’ in relation to individuals and the

tradition. There was little formal evidence o

f a deeper understanding of concepts, of ‘oscillation’ or of personal edification. T

here were

significant professional benefits in increased confidence, dealing

with controversial issues and in developing community education.

The teachers demonstrated open-mindedness and a positive attitude to pluralism

.

Further questions about

the inter-connectedness of

religion and

culture and the interpretation of religious texts were raised

and there was critical engagement with aspects of community life, including the place of women. The research identifies the need for a more

informed critique of and engagement with the presuppositions that underpin discourse on minority communities. The teachers recognised

the need

for the whole school staff

to undergo the same process

and understood that this would be a long-term enterprise.

The conclusion is drawn that the interpretive approach can be applied to teachers’ CPD and that it increases their understanding of and

Chapter 1

Introduction

This is a practitioner research study conducted by a local authority

inspector/adviser with responsibility for community cohesion, race

equality and religious education in schools. It is set in one of the

northern towns (it will be anonymised as ‘Northtown’ throughout this

thesis) where riots took place in 2001 and where the minority ethnic

population, mainly of Pakistani heritage, was just over 21% at the 2001

census. The school where the research was conducted, called ‘School C’,1 serves a mainly Pakistani-heritage population. The research is focused

on a continuing professional development programme (CPD), based on

the interpretive approach (IA) to religious education (RE) developed at

the University of Warwick, and was conducted in the humanities faculty

of a mixed community secondary school during 2007, with final plenary

sessions at the beginning of 2008. Its aim was to evaluate the

transferability of the IA to teachers’ CPD and to see how far it impacted

on them and their understanding of and relationship with the

communities from which their pupils came. It is hoped that the findings

of this research will be of interest, not only to fellow researchers but also

to those engaged in similar work in a variety of contexts, including those

who support teachers’ CPD.

This introductory chapter sets out the background to the research study

Education: A contribution to dialogue or a factor of conflict in

transforming societies of European countries’ - for which the IA forms

the theoretical basis (Weisse, 2007, 17). There is therefore included here

a summary of the IA which also sets out its relevance to this study. The

CPD programme came under the auspices of Northtown’s education

service for which I worked and its part in the promotion of community

cohesion locally is here contextualised. The final section in this

introductory chapter describes the school, its situation and its identified

needs providing sufficient detail to establish the context in which the

research was conducted.

The second chapter gives an account of and justification for the research

methodology that was deployed to evaluate whether or not the IA is

transferable to teachers’ CPD. Chapters 3 and 4 provide an account of

the CPD programme which was conducted and presents the data that

emerged from it, drawing on the wide range of ‘voices’ that emerged

from the deployment of the IA and the teachers’ engagement with it. A

number of key themes are identified to which they returned frequently in

their conversations with each other and with their informants. The data

are then analysed in relation to the research questions: chapter 5

focuses on the first part of the research question on the teachers’

understanding of their communities; chapter 6 on the two remaining

research questions on reflexivity. In the final chapter, conclusions are

The context of the research study

Part of the context of this study that needs to be established is its

timing, not least in relation to community cohesion as a dominant

political theme throughout the decade. The origins of ‘community

cohesion’ as a part of British public discourse can be traced to a range of

events and publications that coincided in 2001: the Ouseley report on

Bradford’s ‘parallel lives’; the riots that took place in several northern

towns which resulted in two major reports on community cohesion: one

by an independent review team chaired by Ted Cantle (2001) and

another by a ministerial group chaired by John Denholm (Home Office,

2001); and the terrorist attacks in America in September of that year. In

the northern towns where the riots had occurred these events had

particular resonance and it is in one of those towns that this research

was conducted.

There followed a wide range of other publications and initiatives (e.g.

Home Office 2003; Community Cohesion Panel, 2004; DCLG 2006;

Commission on Integration and Cohesion, 2007a and b). Further terrorist

attacks in London in 2005 added greater urgency to the perceived need

to promote community cohesion and there was an increasing tendency to

conflate community cohesion with preventing violent extremism,

particularly by government (e.g. CLG 2007b). In relation to schools, it

had been decided that Ofsted would inspect schools from 2008 on their

promotion of community cohesion and guidance on this was published in

There was thus, nationally, political concern about community cohesion

and this was paralleled in the life and work of Northtown. The local

authority (LA) had a firm commitment to community cohesion and the

education service was one of the leading agencies for this. In 2005 it had

developed its community cohesion strategy, setting out both the vision

and the means by which it could be strengthened in educational

contexts. School C, where the staff had considerable experience of

working with minority ethnic pupils but professional anxieties about their

effectiveness, was an ideal setting to test aspects of the strategy and to

site the REDCo Project, not least because the school was seeking

humanities specialist status for which it was required to develop a

community policy.

There are three separate but interlinked bases to this study:

• The European-wide research project - REDCo - in which

Northtown’s education service had agree to participate

• The education service’s community cohesion strategy for which I

was responsible

• The ‘community’ theme within the school’s bid to achieve specialist

humanities status.

The REDCo Project

The REDCo Project is a European-wide research project which takes the

interpretive approach as its theoretical and pedagogical basis (Jackson

surprise since community cohesion had been identified as an important

priority in Europe (e.g. Council of Europe 2008; OSCE 2007; United

Nations Alliance of Civilizations, 2009), as well as in Britain. The four

themes within its title of religion, education, dialogue and conflict are

entirely congruent with the work being undertaken in Northtown. The

REDCo Project was an opportunity to deepen that work and extend our

thinking and therefore the education service accepted the invitation to

participate. Involvement in the REDCo Project meant that this research

could be seen within a wider context, both geographically and

theoretically, with opportunities for analysis and comparison at a range

of levels. There was a further specific benefit in that School C also

participated in separate but linked REDCo qualitative research on pupil

attitudes to religion and religious education (Ipgrave and McKenna,

2008)3_{. The results from that research project provided me with valuable} insights into the students of the school and the questionnaire (see

Appendix 2) used by the European qualitative researchers became a

research tool that could be amended for use with the staff.

The interpretive approach

The REDCo Project takes as its theoretical foundation the interpretive

approach (IA) to religious education developed by Robert Jackson (1997,

2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008a) of the University of Warwick. It is

interesting that the IA arose, at least in part, from ethnographic research

on the transmission of religious culture to children in which he and

colleagues were engaged (e.g. Jackson and Nesbitt, 1993) though he

bound up with the interpretive approach (2000, 131). His research led to

concern about methodological issues that were relevant to both the

study of religions and to religious education and included a critique of the

ways in which religions are often portrayed, neglecting, for example,

their inner diversity (Jackson, 2000, 130). He has always been adamant

that the IA is only one contribution – theoretical, methodological and

pedagogical - to RE and that it is complementary to some others (2008a,

309). Jackson describes his IA as ‘essentially hermeneutical and

post-phenomenological’ (2008b, 191) and it questions some of the

assumptions which had underpinned phenomenology: universal

‘essences’ or ‘ideal types’ (eideia) that could be understood intuitively

are rejected; the bracketing out of one’s own presuppositions (epoche) is

replaced with open engagement in a process of moving from one’s own

view to that of others in a process he calls ‘oscillating’ (2000, 134); and

the use of empathy is replaced with empathy as an outcome of

understanding. Context has to be acknowledged, there is no autonomous

realm of religious meaning (1997, 23) and one cannot assume that what

is meant in one context is the same as its meaning in another. Here

Jackson is drawing on Wittgenstein and Ryle and avoidance of a

‘category mistake’ (ibid). This is why the ‘grammar’ of discourse has to

be understood (24). The IA brings together ethnographic approaches

from cultural anthropology with hermeneutics (2008b, 192) and it is

influenced by the work of a number of key disciplines and writers. He

draws on Geertz’s work in interpretive anthropology and from Ricoeur on

hermeneutics, and creates a model for both the interpretation of

Another significant influence on Jackson was Wilfred Cantwell Smith

(1978) and his use of ‘faith’ and ‘tradition’ to provide means of

understanding ‘religion’. He extends Smith’s model to include the

‘group’, the ‘powerful influence’ which he says Smith ignores (1997,

64).The IA is thus an exploration of the individual (of faith) within the

group (a denomination, for example) as part of the ‘tradition’, enabling

an understanding of ‘parts’ and ‘wholes’ and the relationship between

them. Although Jackson shows that ‘religion’ is a modern, western

construction (1997), he does not reject the notion of tradition as a whole

nor does he reject the use of the word ‘religion’ (as Smith does); instead

he offers the IA as a means of understanding ‘the inner diversity, fuzzy

edgedness and contested nature of religious traditions’ (Jackson, 2005,

8).

There are three key concepts within the IA - representation,

interpretation and reflexivity - and they can be applied to religions and to

cultures and the relationship between them (133; 2008b, 193). In

practice, the dividing lines between representation, interpretation and

reflexivity are, like the religions and cultures under study, somewhat

imprecise (Ipgrave and Jackson, 2009, 162).

In relation to representation, the IA rejects the notion of religions as

reified with essences that can be defined. Rather the contested, complex

and changing nature of religions is stated, along with their inner

approach to religion and that it is not ‘relativistic with regard to truth’

recognising that there are competing truth claims (1997, 126; 2000,

133; 2007, 182). It does not fall into a paradigm that all knowledge is

socially constructed, although it recognises that it is true of some.

Epistemological openness is different from a relativist view that religions

are equally true and it does not deny the possibility of ultimate truth

(1997, 126). The IA distinguishes ’issues of truth from those of meaning’

(2008b, 193). This links to ‘religion as cultural fact’ (Jackson 2007b, 37),

the stance adopted as a procedural strategy by the Council of Europe,

which provided the funding for the REDCo Project. Despite the wide

variations across the European continent on public education and

religion, this view was uncontested: knowledge and understanding of

religions are socially and political relevant.

The second concept, interpretation, has some links with Waardenburg’s

‘new style’ phenomenology, the description and attempted classification

of phenomena which enable comparison, and therefore the drawing out

of meaning (Jackson 1997; 2000). More significantly, there are links with

interpretive anthropology in which the learner oscillates between the

concepts and experiences of the learner and the ‘insider’ in order to

develop understanding. In this he draws on Clifford Geertz’s use of

‘experience near’ and ‘experience distant’ concepts to enable

interpretation (1997, 111). Another influence is Ricoeur’s ‘participation’

and ‘distanciation’, a complementary process which would be built into

this study as teachers engaged in participant observation and engaged

Reflexivity, the final key concept of the interpretive approach, is about

the learner’s relationship with what is being studied. Jackson identifies

three strands:

• edification which is re-assessing the participant’s own

way of life through new understanding (Jackson 1997, 131; 2000,

135);

• a constructive critique of what is being studied: this

approach is not about promoting an undiscerning acceptance but is

one that requires critical engagement (2000, 134);

• a critique of the interpretive process (ibid).

The first of these is supported by other writers, including Grimmitt

(1987) though Jackson argues that his approach is similar to but

different from Grimmitt’s widely used ‘learning from religion’. The

potential transformative power of religious education (an important

concept in the REDCo Project) is present through the raising of complex

questions of belief and values (O’Grady, 2009, 20).

Jackson is also emphatic that the IA can have any starting point on the

hermeneutic circle in the exploration of religion as tradition, as group, as

individual and their interconnectedness; or it can take as its starting

point the questions and concerns of the students themselves (2000,

142). The processes of dialogue and reflection are fundamental to the IA

Involvement in this project gave me the opportunity to take the IA and

see if it could be applied to teachers and their continuing professional

development. How this was done is set out in this study and in a chapter

in the book that resulted from the British REDCo Project (Miller, 2009). It

is important to note at this point that there is congruence between the

community cohesion strategy we had developed in Northtown and the

REDCo Project. The latter has the IA as its theoretical basis and the

former was strongly influenced by it. Engagement with individuals in the

context of the groups as part of a larger tradition and the use of

ethnographic methods in an open and respectful process of dialogue and

learning were key elements of the community cohesion strategy we had

developed two years earlier in Northtown. My previous research degree

(Miller, 1992) was an ethnographic study of a religious community and

the methodology employed there influenced the development of policy

and practice in our work to promote cohesion and respect for diversity.

As Nesbitt says:

Insights from ethnographic studies of faith communities... are

relevant to education practice. As such they need to be

included in... continuing professional development ‘(2005, 20).

Northtown’s community cohesion strategy for education

The second contextual basis of this research study lay in my professional

work as lead officer on community cohesion and in particular, the

strategy (see appendix 1) through which officers could support schools in

based on the Local Government Association’s definition of a cohesive

community as one that has four key characteristics:

• there is a common vision and sense of belonging for all communities

• the diversity of people’s different backgrounds and circumstances is

appreciated and positively valued

• those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities • strong and positive relationships are being developed between

people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and

within neighbourhoods (LGA, 2002).

A number of key concepts underpinned our cohesion strategy: identity

(ies) and community (ies) were the major concepts and we articulated

an understanding of them as multiple, changing and multi-faceted. Other

concepts were ‘dialogue and participation’ as the means whereby

community cohesion could be promoted. These two processes seemed to

us to be the basis of engagement between educationists and the

communities they serve. The final key concept was a phrase we

borrowed from Roger Ballard - ‘skilled cultural navigators’ (1994) - and

then adapted to our own purpose though it may have been more

accurate to use the phrase ‘skilled inter-cultural navigators’. It was our

aim that:

Everyone involved in education will have the confidence to

become ‘skilled cultural navigators’, aware of their own

openness and empathy with the identity (ies) and community

(ies) of others. (Appendix 1, 2-3)

To develop the strategy we took each of the LGA’s four characteristics

and set out a ‘vision’ of what it would look like in an educational setting

and then we identified ways in which it might be achieved. This research

study has this strategy as one of its foundations. I wanted to see if the

community cohesion strategy could work within a school setting, if the

key processes of dialogue and participation would impact positively on

staff, enabling them to develop a more cohesive school community, to

engage more confidently with the communities their school serves and to

develop their own understanding and reflection.5 _{One further aspect of} the community cohesion strategy that is worth mentioning here is the

recognition that there was a need for ‘safe space’ in which dialogue to

promote understanding could take place. Ipgrave made the case for a

‘safe forum’ (2005, 39) in her work on dialogical approaches to RE and it

is echoed in The Curriculum Review Diversity and Citizenship report

chaired by Sir Keith Ajegbo:

Teachers and pupils need room to be able to explore their

own histories and uncertainties within a safe environment,

where debate can develop and their expertise grow (DfES

2007, 35).

Reasons for choosing this school

The third contextual basis of this study is the school where the research

management team. When considering which of a possible 28 Northtown

secondary schools to invite to participate in the REDCo Project a number

of factors were considered. First, I wanted a school where I could rely on

the co-operation of the staff and, ideally, have already worked with some

of the senior and middle managers. Second, I wanted a school with a

significant number of minority ethnic students, not because community

cohesion is only about ethnicity or because it should not be a priority in

all-white schools. Rather, I wanted staff to have a professional incentive

to participate in exploring religions and communities and to be able to

assess the relevance of what they had done in the light of their

day-to-day work. Thirdly and significantly, I also wanted a school where

religious education is taken seriously and taught well. This school has

had, over the seven years I have analysed Northtown’s examination

results, consistently high positive residuals for their Religious Studies

(RS) full course GCSE.6 _{In 2007, 44% of students gained five A*-C} grades at GCSE level.7 _{The results in RS were significantly higher: 72%} achieved A*-C grades in full course GCSE, taken by 53% of the cohort

(with another 20% doing short course). This constitutes what the school

rightly describes in its Self-Evaluation Form (SEF) as ‘excellent

performance’ and the results are 0.75 of a grade higher than predicted

by Yellis (that is, what students are expected to achieve given their

previous performance). I had already carried out a small research study

in 2005 in this school, and others, on why RS/RE results were higher

For these reasons, the school was approached and the newly appointed

head teacher agreed to participate. It must be recognised, however, that

the school faced considerable challenges which made demands on staff

time and energy. In 2007 it was judged by Ofsted to be satisfactory,

with some aspects of the school’s work being praised. Their SEF says

that their examination results mean that ‘we are making the same

amount of progress as the top 25% of schools nationally’. It also points

out that there is little difference between the performance of white and

Pakistani students, and between students for whom English is an

additional language (EAL) and first language students. Nonetheless, the

school’s overall performance is below the national average and in the last

five years it has been in an Ofsted ‘category’ indicating its failure to

provide an appropriate standard of education. In 2008 it was labelled as

a ‘national challenge school’ by the DCSF because of its failure to achieve

30% five A*-C grades at GCSE level, including both English and Maths.

This had serious negative consequences on the CPD programme, as we

shall see.

The school’s needs

The school’s managers had two specific reasons for agreeing to

participate in the project. The first lay in its bid to become a specialist

status humanities school which it finally achieved in autumn 2007. Each

specialist status bid has a community dimension and the school’s

strategic priorities included the need to build links with stakeholders and

to enhance community participation. They had identified three groups

Asian women, migrant workers and local senior citizens. They recognised

that this research study could definitely help with the first and might

contribute to the second and that participation would increase the

likelihood of achieving the success in their bid which had, so far, eluded

them.

Their second reason for agreeing is that the school is situated in a largely

white middle class suburban area but its students do not come from the

locality. According to the school’s SEF, students live an average of three

miles away from the school and the staff feel that relationships with their

community (ies) suffer consequently: ‘the community of the students is

distant from the school in terms of distance and culture’ (see Fig. 1).8

This is a significant statement by the school. The guidance issued by the

Department of Children Schools and Families (DCSF) on promoting

community cohesion (2007) offers a four-fold definition of ‘community’

including ‘the community within which the school is located’ (2007, 5)

but this over-simplifies the complexity of demographics and school

populations. In this instance the ‘local community’ is largely white while

the school’s population is largely Pakistani-heritage and the students live

in very different social, economic and ethnic circumstances. Local white

pupils go to schools further along the valley. The reason for this is often

attributed to ‘white flight’ (e.g. Lynch writing in an appendix to the

Cantle report, 2001, 70-1). Lynch quotes Kundnani who links this

phenomenon with that of ‘parental choice’9 _{which has resulted in}

[image:21.595.108.486.233.590.2]

Figure 1. The school in relation to pupils’ addresses by ethnicity

alternative views. Yunis Alam, a local academic, describes the movement

as ‘middle class flight’ suggesting that segregation is more closely linked

to socio-economic factors (2006, 15) and indeed the local community is

beginning to change as more affluent minority ethnic families move in.

Ludi Simpson and Nisa Finney demonstrate that there are equal

movements of Pakistani-heritage families out of the inner cities (as they

settle and become more prosperous) as there are movements in of white

people whom I take to be (though they do not say) European migrant

workers (Finney and Simpson, 2009, 187). Nonetheless, School C‘s

population is skewed in relation to its immediate locality and, like most

schools in Northtown, it serves a largely mono-cultural population. These

matters were referred to quite frequently during the CPD sessions, as in

the following exchange between the head teacher and the deputy head

of faculty:

HT Lots of Muslim parents want their kids to go to the

white school because they think they’re better.

David That’s what happened here and now look at us - we’re

mainly Muslim. (Laughter)

There was a strong desire expressed by both the school’s managers and

its teachers that the ‘distance’ between the pupils’ families and the

school should be overcome and participation in this project was one of

the ways in which they believed this could be achieved. It can be

expressed in terms of ‘social bridging’, a term widely borrowed from

Putnam (2000) in his work on ‘social capital’, defined by Communities

Putnam identifies three categories: bonding, bridging and linking (CLG

2007a, 14; 2008, 26). A school’s role falls within the second category of

‘bridging’ – forming connections between people who have overlapping

interests and who may come from within different groups in a

community. It was clear from both the school’s documentation and

conversations with staff that the enhancing of ‘social capital’ was high on

their priority list and they wanted to ‘bridge’ the distance between them

and their communities. They were willing to make the effort to meet the

challenge articulated by Modood and Kastoryano (2006, 176):

Do not parents have the right to expect that schools will make

an effort ... not to create a conflict between the work of the

school and the upbringing of the children at home, but, rather,

show respect for their religious background?

The wider local context

It is necessary now to place the school in its local context. Northtown

has been the focus of considerable negative attention including two

infamous ‘affairs’, one linked to a local head teacher whose comments

stirred up controversy about minority ethnic pupils (1984-5) and the

other to the burning of The Satanic Verses in 1989 (Bowen, 1992;

Parekh, 1993, 2006). This has resulted in very negative perceptions

generally of Northtown (e.g. Sardar, 2009, 119), alongside a focus on its

Black and Minority Ethnic population (BME) which is largely from Mirpur,

a district of Pakistani Kashmir. Several high-profile reports have been

written on Northtown which focus on ‘parallel lives’ (Home Office, 2004)

unsubstantiated claims of segregation and ghetto-ization and populist

publications have furthered this view. In a book that aroused significant

local controversy, George Alagiah wrote ‘I was entering a version of

Kashmir... an Asian enclave... a kind of separate development’ (2006,

157). A recent report from Civitas purports to provide evidence of jihadi

activities in Muslim schools, including one of the most respected schools

in Northtown (MacEoin, 2009). The publicity that surrounds the

publication of such reports can be deeply damaging to public (and

teachers’) perceptions of Muslim communities in Britain. As Alam and

Husband point out Northtown’s Pakistani-heritage community is

presented as ‘fundamentally flawed’ (2006, 17) and in need of reform,

both of which assertions they reject.

There can be no doubt that these negative perceptions have an impact

not only on how the school sees itself but how the young people growing

up in Northtown see themselves and their communities, not least in the

aftermath of the 2001 riots. Ethnicity and religion are seen as key factors

in Northtown, as Alam and Husband point out:

For the majority of British ‘white’ citizens’, it is easy to see

[Northtown] as an extreme demonstration of the social costs

of allowing ‘ethnic ghettos’ to develop in our inner cities. And,

for the majority population, the difference and wilful

‘self-segregation’ of this population are fundamentally linked to

But there are now challenges to these perceptions on several fronts.

Challenge to the prevailing perception using quantitative data comes

from Ludi Simpson who sets out to dispel what he calls ‘myths’,

especially the notions of increasing segregation and ghetto-ization and

he demonstrates statistically that many of these assumptions are deeply

erroneous, including Trevor Phillips’ assertion that we are ‘sleepwalking

into segregation’10 _{(Finney and Simpson 2009). Challenge based on} qualitative data comes from Alam and Husband’s work gathered through

interviews with British-Pakistani men in Northtown (Alam, 2006) from

which they develop a socio-political critique (Alam and Husband, 2006).

They reject the analyses of Cantle, Ouseley and others, arguing that

within the Pakistani-heritage community there is huge strength, alluding

back to Putnam (2000), in ‘social bonding’ which they see not as

isolationist but rather a strong foundation on which participative

citizenship can be based (Alam and Husband, 2006, 56). For them, social

class and poverty are too often ignored in any analysis of Northtown’s

situation where ethnicity is invariably given primacy (55).

Social deprivation

There is a significant degree of social deprivation in the wards from

which the school’s students primarily come. ‘NT’8 and ‘NT’9, according to

the schools’ SEF, are ranked in the 20% most deprived areas in England

and there are ‘indicators of severe deprivation in many households in

[image:26.595.75.566.180.522.2]

Figure 2: Pupil addresses in relation to areas of multiple

deprivation, by ethnicity

Lewis points out that 55% of Muslims in England live in areas containing

the most deprived housing conditions and they form a ‘growing

underclass’ (2007, 29) that impacts on negatively on community cohesion

(e.g. CLG 2007a, 13). As one of Alam’s respondents says tellingly, ‘Us

The school’s population

2005 figures from Northtown’s local authority show that out of 28

secondary schools 20 had 85% or more of their population from one

cultural/ethnic group (13 white and 7 Pakistani-heritage). There were no

schools where fewer than 60% of pupils were from either of those

groups. In other words, schools are not mixed. The Ouseley report

stated that ‘segregation in schools is one indicator’ of the ‘social

fragmentation’ that is occurring in Northtown (2001, 6). Bristol

University research on ethnic segregation in schools says that Northtown

is one of the areas showing ‘extreme segregation indices’ (Burgess and

Wilson, 2003, 8).

In 2007 School C had 927 pupils, with an additional 136 in the sixth

form. The proportion of boys to girls is high (58.3%) and slowly

increasing; 76.5% of pupils are from a South Asian background with

71.4% of Pakistani heritage.12 _{The school has spare capacity and}

admitted 91 students mid-year in 2007 who are mainly Pakistani and do

not speak English. They fall into two groups: students who have been

excluded from neighbouring schools and those who are newly arrived in

Britain. The school’s SEF says of these pupils:

Some are scarred by their experience of war and are

orphans. Many need to spend months learning English before

they can join mainstream classes. Both groups require

specialist and intensive support ... we have many success

stories not only of academic achievement by also personal

The school was given ‘outstanding’ in its support of vulnerable pupils by

Ofsted when it was judged to be only satisfactory overall.

The school’s SEF says that 738 students do not have English as a first

language and they are at an early stage of English language acquisition.

The number of students with special education needs is 56.1% (17.6%

nationally). The percentage of pupils entitled to free school meals is

37.5% (13.1 nationally).13 _{In the school year from September 2006} around 24% of white students were excluded (8 boys and 14 girls) and

around 12% of Pakistani students (64 boys and 13 girls). The school has

anxieties about its poor white disaffected population. Thus, it can be

seen that the school works in the challenging circumstances of what is

sometimes called ‘super-diversity’.14

Projects to promote community cohesion

It is important to note that this project stands within a strong tradition in

the school to promote community cohesion and it is clear that the staff

take this responsibility seriously. The school’s SEF says that there is

‘little evidence of inter-racial aggression or violence’ and Ofsted agreed

that it is a ‘racially harmonious, inclusive community’. Throughout this

project, the staff demonstrated what Sir Keith Ajegbo describes as ‘the

commitment of each school’s head teacher and leadership team, to

drive, morally and intellectually, the importance of education for diversity

The school’s SEF lists a number of ways in which it works with its

community including:

• Regular visits into the school community e.g. mosques, community centres...

• Senior staff visits to Mirpur to promote community and cultural

cohesion and foreground the humanitarian ethos of our school

• Liaison with community stakeholders though extended schools • Discussion with Muslim scholars and elders during Nasiha launch

has specific positive impact on community cohesion (see below)

• Whole school assemblies

• Student involvement in city wide projects such as ‘In Your Shoes’.15

The SEF points out that the school is developing good links with the

community it serves and gives the example of an information evening at

a local community centre. What the SEF does not say is that this was

very poorly attended. There was only one parent who turned up for the

event and only three who came to a meeting on the Mirpur Connection,

an initiative run in collaboration with the local university, amongst

others, designed to foster links with Pakistan.16

One of the important community cohesion initiatives the school

highlights in its SEF is the Nasiha project.17 _{This is worth describing in} some detail because it has attained a high national profile and is included

in the Yorkshire and Humber government office’s summary of projects to

reduce violent extremism (Wheeler, 2008). The school engaged in a trial

Northtown’s mosques where it was taught by imams. Described as a

citizenship programme, it was produced by a science teacher at School C

for the local Council for Mosques. Lessons include such topics as ‘Oath of

Peace’, ‘Sacredness of Life’, ‘Being a Good Student’ and ‘Islam and

Suicide Bombings’ and there is a strong emphasis on civil participation

and democracy. The teaching methods deployed are a hybrid of madrasa

and maintained school approaches. The Nasiha project was launched by

Ruth Kelly, then secretary of state at the CLG, at the school. It provides

evidence that the school is already trying hard to work with its local

community and participation in the REDCo Project is another attempt to

do this.

Conclusion

This, then, is the background to the research study based on the

interpretive approach which applies its principles to the continuing

professional development of teachers in the humanities faculty of a

maintained mixed comprehensive school in a local authority in the north

of England.

The three bases of the study have been set out: the European-wide

REDCo Project with its theoretical basis in the interpretive approach, the

local authority’s community cohesion strategy and the school’s need to

improve its understanding of and relationship with its local communities.

It is necessary to point out at this stage that the three bases to the

study make for complexity. My agenda as a researcher within the REDCo

transferability of the interpretive approach whilst they were setting out

to improve their relationships with their local communities. These

different agendas were not in tension in the activities we engaged in

together but they made the structuring and writing of the study more

complex.

The context of the study has been set out in relation to the school and

the community which it serves, within the wider community of Northtown

where it is situated. Some detail has been given about Northtown which

has faced considerable notoriety about its community relations,

particularly with regard to its main minority group, Pakistani-heritage

people from the district of Mirpur. Negative perceptions about Northtown

have been challenged but it is also recognised that they impact on the

school and its students and they form part of the background in which

this research was conducted.

In the next chapter, I set out an account of and justification for the

research methods used to gather data in this evaluation of the

transferability of the interpretive approach to teachers’ continuing

professional development. Grimmitt (2000, 22) pointed out that it was

‘remarkable’ that there had been no independent evaluations of any of

the main pedagogies of religious education. This study will not provide

that but it will provide an evaluation of its transferability and

effectiveness in the context of adult education, sometimes referred to as

End-notes

1 _{This is the name given to this school in another linked but separate REDCo}

study on teenagers’ views on religion (Bertram-Troost et al., 2008).

2 _{One of my specialist studies forms part of the theoretical background to this}

thesis and provides a critical overview of the development of community

cohesion in policy and practice since 2001, particularly in relation to Northtown.

3 _{The school in which I conducted my research is School C in this chapter.}

4 _{An anonymised version is appended to prevent identification of the LA (See}

appendix 1).

5 _{This resonates with some of the guidance in the DCSF’s toolkit for schools on}

preventing violent extremism where strengthening links with communities is

affirmed (2008, 8).

6 _{Positive residuals provide a comparison between students’ attainment in one}

subject and the rest of their results.

7 _{Their target for five A*-C grades at GCSE in 2007 was 37% whereas the actual}

figure was 44%. This was the school’s highest ever A*-C score and exceeded

the Fischer Family Trust predictions7_.

8 _{Fig 1. The school’s population, by ethnicity and residence. Pakistani-heritage}

pupils are shown in green. A yellow star shows the school’s location. The map

shows all 29 wards of Northtown Metropolitan District.

9 _{The correct term is in fact ‘parental preference’.}

10 _{Made in a speech in September 2005.}

11 _{Fig. 2. The school’s population, by ethnicity and residence, in relation to}

indices of multiple deprivation in Northtown. Pakistani-heritage pupils are

12 _{According to the draft document published by Ofsted in its consultation on the} duty to promote community cohesion there are 63 secondary schools that have

more 50% of BME pupils, of which this school is one.

13 _{These figures are from Ofsted data, 2006.}

14 _{See, for example, Finney and Simpson (2009, 12-3).}

15 _{‘In Your Shoes’ aimed to promote enterprise and understanding of diversity}

and was set up by a local Business and Enterprise College. Year 7 students from

six local secondary schools, including School C, and two schools in Pakistan all

accepted the challenge to explain to others what it is like to stand in their shoes

through film, design and writing. They met each other and, where possible,

visited each other’s schools.

16 _{See: http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/pr/pressreleases/2007/mirpur.php}

17 _{www.nasiha.co.uk}

Chapter 2

Research methodology

This research study was carried out under the auspices of the REDCo

Project, a European Commission Framework 6 Project involving nine

European universities (Jackson et al., 2007). Part of the English

contribution was a series of action or practitioner research studies

undertaken within a community of practice (Wenger, 1998), based at the

University of Warwick in which this researcher, along with others,

applied the interpretive approach (IA) to a range of learning situations

(Jackson, 2008a; Ipgrave, Jackson and O’Grady, 2009). My study was

the only one undertaken with serving teachers and it was necessary to

identify research methods that were appropriate for the topic without

being unnecessarily intrusive on the teachers’ experience of what was,

for them, a continuing professional development (CPD) programme. I

was researching the IA while they were interested in how the community

aspect of their bid to become a specialist status school could be made

successful and how they could improve their relationship with and

understanding of their local communities. This entailed a degree of

compromise, particularly in the construction of the programme and the

activities the teachers would undertake. To give an example of what this

meant in practice: the school had identified ‘Asian women’ as one focus

of its bid so we included a visit to a women’s community centre for one

These were not intrinsic to the research question but nor were they

completely tangential.

Community of Practice

The ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998) set up by the English

researchers at Warwick involved in the REDCo Project provided both

support and challenge and it linked each of the participants to each

other’s research all of which was based within the same theoretical

framework (Jackson, 2008a, 319).There was too a common

epistemological stance, congruent with the areas under study and the

methods employed, where knowledge evolved from ‘practice, reflection

and conversation’ (O’Grady, 2009, 39). The Warwick group met all three

of Wenger’s dimensions of a community of practice. We were: engaged

in a ‘joint enterprise’; bound together as a social entity by ‘mutual

engagement’; had a ‘shared repertoire’ developed over time, including

our theoretical basis in the interpretive approach and vocabulary

(Wenger, 1998, 2). We met four out of five of Altrichter’s reasons for

setting up a community of practice: we ‘talked about plans, steps and

results’; we engaged in the ‘dissemination of teacher knowledge’; we

collaborated as ‘critical friends’ in a collegial group; and we became a

‘critical forum for research’ (Altrichter, 2005, 13). The one criterion we

did not fully meet was to practise research methods on each other.

Altrichter emphasises the importance of the ‘professional community’ as

part of a social process rather than an individual pursuit and that was

important in our community of practice which extended over three years

The community of practice group took the interpretive approach (IA) and

applied it to a number of research contexts, partly to test it and partly to

develop it. One of the intentions was to gain a set of well-documented

descriptions of the approach in practice (Jackson and O’Grady, 2007,

197).

A practitioner research approach

The term ‘practitioner’ rather than ‘action’ research seems more

appropriate to this study for several reasons. First, there is no iterative

element in this research, one of the key identifiers of action research

(Altrichter, 1993, 49). It had been planned that there would be at least

two CPD programmes conducted with two different faculties, both of

which would be evaluated in the research study. However, after the first

programme was completed, the head teacher asked that there should be

a delay in starting the second but then declined to participate further, on

the grounds of staff time.1 _{Second, the research is not about defining a} problem and testing action strategies (44), which Altrichter (2005) and

O’Grady (2007) identify as central to action research where it is primarily

designed to develop teaching strategies and improve professional

practice (e.g. O’Dell, 2009). There was some element of ‘testing’ in my

study in that aspects of the community cohesion strategy we had

developed within the education service of Northtown formed part of the

contextual basis for the project, but the strategy was not being formally

tested with a view to its being amended accordingly. Nor was I setting

and O’Grady, 2009, 167). A third reason is that ‘practitioner’ is a broad

term and applicable to professionals other than teachers (Dadds, n.d.)

and this helped differentiate my part in the community of practice from

the other studies, all of which were situated in either schools or

universities and conducted by ‘teachers as researchers’ in ‘practical

action research’ (Cohen et al., 2007, 302).The distinction between

practitioner and action research is, nonetheless, somewhat blurred.

A qualitative research study

An early decision was taken that this study would rely on qualitative

data, partly because the size of the group involved is small, comprising

only 11 teachers from which no statistically valid data could be drawn.

Given that the IA is formulated from the joint bases of social

anthropology and hermeneutics, it would appear self-evident that an

interpretive research methodology would be employed in any study that

was seeking to evaluate its effectiveness in practice. This research is

predicated on a view of religions and cultures as constructed, changing

and internally diverse. It is focussing on teachers who are trying to

understand and interact with their communities and their members’

constructions of their communities, identities, practices and beliefs.

There is here a double hermeneutic because what I am investigating is

how teachers relate to and make meaning from their encounters with

members of religious and cultural communities while the teachers are

making meaning of those encounters. As Ipgrave points out this led to

some ‘blurring of the boundaries between the objects and the processes

complexity of this study though as she also points out that this means

that I am ‘more closely attuned to [the teachers’] experiences of the

project’ (ibid).

To understand meaning requires careful, detailed investigation of

thoughts, responses, perceptions and experiences, the epistemological

basis of which is anti-positivist and constructivist. A naturalistic and

interpretive methodology (Cohen et al., 2007, 5) based on qualitative

data, gathered in a number of ways, is the means by which this can be

achieved. Research, as Jackson says, is about ‘human beings relating to

other human beings as well as about formulating and testing

hypotheses’ (2001,188).

I recognise that other researchers have adopted different methodologies

whilst investigating related areas. For example, Smith (2007) adopts a

quantitative approach in his study of 3,418 young people and the

influence of religions on their behaviour and attitudes. While there are

benefits in having statistically valid data, I found his study frustrating

because it gave little insight into what the young people thought or why.

For example, he found that 60% of South Asian British youngsters felt

that their lives had purpose compared with 54% of White British

youngsters. He then writes: ‘This may be due to a stronger sense of

community...; or it may be a result of the fact that they live in families

who have made conscious decisions to migrate...; or it may be due to

their religious or political beliefs’ [my emphases] (2007, 26). In other

heard at all, only their tick-box answers to his questions. In my study,

the teachers were going to listen to the voices of members of

communities and I was going to listen to the teachers’ voices, as they

grappled with interpreting those communities and reflected on the

impact on them, both professionally and personally, in the process the

interpretive approach terms reflexivity.

The research question

The basis of the research question lies within the three principal concepts

of the interpretive approach, applied to teachers’ CPD within the context

of the REDCo project. These three are representation, interpretation and

reflexivity which sit alongside the REDCo concepts of religion, education,

dialogue, conflict and transformation.

The following research question was formulated:

What is the impact of the deployment of the interpretive

approach in the continuing professional development of the

humanities faculty teachers’

1. Understanding of the school’s religious and cultural

communities

2. Personal edification

3. Professional practice?

This question is drawn from the interpretive approach, the purpose of

which is to enable an understanding of communities, both religious and

cultural, through engagement with individual practitioners and their

of ensuring that religions and cultures are appropriately represented is to

enable an informed understanding of them. The first part of the research

question was therefore to see if this happened as a consequence of

deploying the first two principles, representation and interpretation, of

the IA. Jackson also insists that the study results in edification, part of

the key concept that he terms ‘reflexivity (1997, 131; 2000, 135). The

second part of the question therefore asks if such personal edification

took place and, because this was about teachers and their professional

development, a third element was also necessary. The evidence gathered

from the three parts of this research question would enable a conclusion

to be drawn on whether or not the IA could be successfully transferred to

teachers’ CPD.

Gathering data: data sets

In order to gather data on the teachers’ responses to the experiences

they undertook as part of this evaluation of the transferability of the

interpretive approach, it was necessary to deploy research methods that

gather detailed qualitative data that would give an accurate

representation of the teachers’ understanding and edification. This

included their attempts to grapple with some complex and difficult

questions and to explore questions of meaning and interpretation. It was

essential that such data were gathered in a sensitive, respectful manner

and in a number of ways, to enable these levels of complexity to be

expressed and recorded. The research methods chosen within the

qualitative paradigm are taken from ethnographic research: participant

variety of forms) and relevant published documentation (Burgess, 1984;

Cohen et al., 2007; Cheetham, 2001; Nesbitt, 2001).

The first research method was participant observation and the taking of

detailed fieldnotes in the many contexts in which we worked: the school

library for preparatory meetings; the off-site resource centre; during the

semi-structured interviews with the sixth form students; the places of

worship and the community centres. These fieldnotes were sometimes

written during the CPD sessions (such as while participants were

interviewing the students) or they were written up as soon as possible

afterwards (such as the CPD sessions which I was leading).2 _Detailed fieldnotes, including my observations, comments, questions and

cross-references as well as notes on the participants and their informants and

what took place, form what Geertz calls ‘thick description’ (quoted by

Cohen et al., 2007, 169).

These fieldnotes were complemented by the flip charts the teachers

produced throughout the CPD sessions: their initial understandings of

identity and community; their knowledge and perceptions of the groups

identified in the specialist status bid; their existing knowledge of the

place of worship they were to visit; the questions and issues they wanted

to raise; as well as the notes from their plenary sessions at the end of

each of the three CPD days.

These two sets of data, along with my planning notes and agendas for

the teachers’ engagement with the communities and community leaders

they met. This has its basis in Glaser and Strauss (1967) and their

‘grounded theory’ approach in which, through reading and re-reading the

data, the key themes emerge and are not superimposed by the

researcher. These themes then helped determine the questions asked

during semi-structured interviews with three members of staff that were

conducted early the following term, as a form of triangulation or

‘respondent validation’ (O’Grady, 2007, 124). I checked that they agreed

that these were the main themes and that they had nothing further to

add. The following themes were identified:

• Identity

• British/Pakistani?

• Differentiating between religion and culture

• Interpretation of the Qur’an

• The place of women within Islam

• ‘Diversity within diversity’

• Division within community/ies

• Division between communities

• Religion as the focus for racism.

• 9/11

• School as a centre for and within the community.

After further reading of the data, they were further grouped into

categories to enable concise and coherent reporting and these are set

out in chapters 3 and 4. Only to report on or through Jackson’s or

misrepresenting the teachers’ own presuppositions, responses, values

and attitudes and would be both restrictive and unethical. It was

important that the teachers’ voices should not only be heard but that

they, at least in part, should determine the way in which the data they

generated are presented.

The teachers’ accounts

There were three other sets of written data gathered from the teachers:

reflective diaries and two sets of questionnaires which were analysed for

further evidence on the key themes that had arisen and to see if there

were any others to be added. First, in September 2007 as the main part

of the CPD sessions were getting underway, four teachers agreed to

keep a reflective diary (RD) throughout the rest of the project. I

suggested that it would be appropriate to have both men and women;

managers and main scale staff; experienced and less experienced staff. I

gave the teachers relatively little guidance saying only that I wanted

them to feel free to note anything that was of interest or significance to

them and to record their own responses and feelings about the various

tasks we were undertaking. Three were written in school note books and

comprised between 18 sides from a part-time female teacher (RD 3)

and four sides from the head of faculty (RD 1), who wrote his

retrospectively, despite my request that they should be kept up-to-date.

The youngest member of the team kept hers electronically (RD 4). I was

aware, as Nesbitt points out, that these were not ‘spontaneous diaries’

(2001, 148) but they were an attempt to give an open-ended

and their findings. The data in these diaries were used in two main ways:

to check the accuracy and validity of my fieldnotes and to enable an

analysis of the data through the key themes of interpretation and

reflexivity (this is written up in chapters 5 and 6). This proved to be a

more difficult task than the analysis of the questionnaires that the staff

had also completed for the obvious reason that the teachers were free to

write whatever they chose in their diaries whereas the questionnaires

were constructed to elicit specific evidence. When writing in their diaries,

teachers moved (often within the same paragraph) through and around

issues of representation, interpretation and reflexivity and it was difficult

to extract and separate out the three strands of the IA but the three are

closely interrelated anyway (Ipgrave and O’Grady, 2009, 172). The level

of honesty in the teachers’ diaries was noticeable and, although difficult

to quantify precisely, I felt that some of the diaries gave quite an openly

critical view of their experiences. They were thus a rich source of data

and are widely quoted in this study.

Staff also completed two questionnaires. The first (see appendix 2) had

two purposes in terms of this research study and it was based on the

questionnaire that had been completed by their students as part of a

linked REDCo study (Ipgrave and McKenna, 2008).3 _{It gave me the} opportunity to collect basic information about each member of staff

including gender, age, teaching status and self-ascription in terms of

religious membership and nationality. I deleted or combined some

questions, amended some to take account of the teachers’ age and

different religions can live together?’ to ‘live in the same

community’, because ‘living together’ has particular connotations for

adults.4 _{This questionnaire also enabled me to gather from the staff} some of their views on religion and on religion in education which were

used for the analysis of the data under the headings of ‘interpretation’

and ‘reflexivity’ (see chapters 5 and 6).

A second questionnaire, or summary form, was completed by (nine of

the eleven) staff after each of the CPD days (see appendix 3). Its

purpose was to gather more detailed data on what the teachers had

gained in developing their understanding of the religious and cultural

communities they had visited and the impact it had made on them (so

far) professionally and personally. In order to construct this summary

form, I primarily used the questions defined by Robert Jackson (2007a;

2008a, 317-9), using the three key concepts of the IA, along with the

key concepts of the REDCo Project. Again these answers were used

primarily to enable an analysis of the data under the headings of

‘interpretation’ and ‘reflexivity’ and these are presented in chapters 5

and 6.

The teachers were asked 14 questions which began with the opportunity

for them to set out what they had learned during the CPD day about

‘religions’ and ‘communities’ that was new or different. Their answers

would provide me with substantiating evidence to compare with what

they had said they knew at the beginning of the day as well as providing

were phrased in an open and straightforward manner, not least to

motivate the teachers to answer fully and to continue with the more

complex and demanding questions which followed.

The second set of questions, of which there were three, moved to

interpretation and were taken directly from Jackson (2007a): their

understanding of key terms and concepts; the relationship between the

individuals they had met, the group and the tradition as a whole to which

they belonged; their ability to empathise with their informants,

notwithstanding the difficulties of the word ‘empathy’ (Jackson, 1997,

46). Having given the teachers the opportunity to articulate their

interpretation of their experiences, the next questions asked about

representation. Had we avoided stereotyping and misrepresentation?

Had we given sufficient attention to diversity within religions/

communities? These questions were partly about finding out whether the

experiences that had been planned to be congruent with the IA were

seen in the same way by the teachers. They were also there to reinforce

the importance of diversity and the avoiding of stereotyping in relation to

their roles as teachers in a multi-cultural school.

The final questions were on the theme of reflexivity, and its subset of

edification (Jackson 2006, 402-3). As set out in the research question,

the third part of the IA in this research is being understood in two ways:

reflexivity in relation to the teachers’ professional understanding and

expertise, and their personal edification (Jackson, 1997) a term which he

(and which links these questions directly to the concepts used in the

REDCo Project).

First, teachers were asked if they had shared or common experience with

the people they had met, then they were asked if they had found

anything that was different and which had caused them to reflect. This

Jackson describes as oscillating between their own experience and that

of others in the process of reflection (1997, 130). Second, the teachers

were asked what impact (if any) there might be on their professional

work with a request to list what they were. This was an attempt to move

beyond a quick affirmation of the experience, to more specific indications

of its impact. Returning to one of the stated concepts of the REDCo

Project, there was then an opportunity for the teachers to identify

anything which had caused them conflict or discomfort. The third and

final question asked if there was anything else they wanted to add. The

data from these questionnaires provide another layer of evidence to

enable a detailed and substantiated analysis.

The responses from staff were collated under each of the interpretive

approach headings and then classified within each set of answers,

according to subject. Perhaps inevitably, the answers did not always fit

the questions and these too were noted and included. A note was made

of questions that were left blank and by how many staff, and how many

were negative responses. Because the questionnaire was set out under

the headings of the three sections within the IA, the data gathered